


Spark Hearts

by Abroma



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Curse Breaking, F/M, Hopeful Ending, Lovers to Friends, Pining, Unhealthy Relationships, blatant overuse of star metaphors, hard truths, misuse of ministry property, sex with feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-24
Updated: 2019-03-24
Packaged: 2019-11-29 05:11:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18218651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Abroma/pseuds/Abroma
Summary: He doesn't ask her to stay; he never does. She wouldn't, anyway.For DFW's Never Apologising For Our Wild Nikita Gill Challenge





	Spark Hearts

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the DFW Never Apologising For Our Wild Nikita Gill challenge. My prompt is below, titled "A Dangerous Collection".
> 
> Be sure to read & give love to the other pieces in this collection!

**A Dangerous Collection**

**You are a dangerous collection  
of all my favourite things**

**An old soul,**  
**a heart of gold**  
**and hands that make my body sing**

**~Nikita Gill**

 

i.

His legs were still trembling from release when she pushed herself off of him and up on her knees, his hot cum sliding down her leg. She grimaced and reached for her wand from the nightstand, casting a cleaning charm over them both.

He hated her cleaning charms. They were too thorough – they always removed the smell of her along with the rest of it.

She swung her leg around and slid off the bed, leaning down to sort through the clothes on the floor where they had thrown them. When he had walked her back until the back of her knees hit the bed, tearing her blouse over her head and laying her down to work the zip of her jeans.

He pulled the wrinkled sheet up to his waist and rolled over onto his side, propping himself up on his elbow as he watched her. Her hair fell from behind her ear to fan over her face as she bent over to grab her knickers – he always hoped she would forget those, but she never did – and she pushed it back with slender fingers, her tongue darting over her lips.

"I'm not going to have much time this week," she said, pulling her bra straps over her shoulders and clasping it behind her back.

"Oh." He yawned. "New proposal?"

"Not exactly." Her eyes darted around her feet. "Where...oh–" She bent over again and grabbed her jeans from underneath a blanket that had been tossed from the bed early on when she had pushed him onto his back and taken his cock in her hand. Wrapped her nimble fingers around his shaft, moving along it at a frustrating pace that was both too much and not enough.

He rubbed his hand down his face.

And the way she looked at it, like a project, peering at it from all angles, her tongue peeking out in concentration. It had been three months that they had been falling into bed together, and she was still searching out new ways to touch him, new places to put her fingers or her lips or her tongue. She had the uncanny ability to make sex feel at once clinical and sensual in a way that drove him mad. His fingers curled in the sheet by his hip.

And – she was leaving. He frowned as she moved to his mirror, smoothing her hands over her tangled curls.

She never stayed long after they were done, despite Draco's best efforts at keeping her with him. She could extract herself from his attempts at conversation in the same way that she could wriggle out of his arms when they wrapped around her waist after they finished – with a determination and finality that left no room for interpretation.

He didn't ask her to stay; he never did. She wouldn't, anyway.

When he was young, his mother used to tell him about the stars. The Blacks were named for the stars, she said, because they were meant for something. They were destined to be great, and that included him, young Draco Malfoy, who sat on his mother's lap in the garden of the ancestral home that would one day be his. The Blacks of days past had been Ministers, Undersecretaries, and Headmasters, people of influence who could secure the attention of others and sway opinions with ease.

Laying in the grass outside the Manor, she would guide his small hands around above him, finding them in the night sky. The stars that used to guide sailors and explorers, that were worshipped by ancient religions, were the same stars that looked down on him, a spoiled six-year-old who took too much for granted.

It turned out to be rubbish, of course. If a member of the Black family had anything, it was likely gained by theft, manipulation, or blackmail. In more recent history, the only things the Black family seemed able to lead were themselves – into broken families and early graves. Narcissa would have been able to attest to both.

Draco, assuredly, wasn't meant for anything significant, but the only thing he wanted now was the ability to keep her in his flat until morning.

She came back to stand by the bed, and she kissed him, her tongue dipping between his lips with a promise that had his cock stirring once more against the sheet. Her hand came to rest on his ribs as she leaned over him, her thumb brushing back and forth across the muscles of his chest with her gentle touch.

When he brought his hands up to her shoulders to tug her into his chest, she pulled away.

"I should go," she said, stepping back. "It's late."

He dropped his shoulders back to the mattress, rolling onto his back. She grabbed her bag, thrown haphazardly by the door, and turned back toward him.

"I'll owl you."

He closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose, and waited – for the  _crack_  of apparition, or the  _click_  of the door, or the  _woosh_  of his Floo.

When he opened his eyes, she was gone.

 

ii.

A week later, he watched her from the doorway, the sleeves of her blouse drawn up to her elbows as she struggled to hold on to a stack of books under one arm while her other slid them one-by-one into the bookshelf across the office from her cherry wood desk. He folded his arms and leaned against the doorframe as he watched her leave small touches on each of the covers, as if she were finding them for the first time.

One of the books started to slip from the stack, and she bent over to hold it against her hip, her pleated skirt skimming the backs of her thighs. She brought up a knee to keep the other books still while she adjusted the stack with her free hand.

_Charming_ was the word that came to his mind, and Draco hated himself for it.  _Charming_ and  _soft_ and  _beautiful_ and –

He needed to stop thinking.

"Shouldn't you be more practiced at this?"

A gasp left her throat, and her head snapped toward him, the books toppling out of her grasp.

"Malfoy," she said with a breathy laugh that seemed to linger in his ears and wiped her forehead with the back of her hand. "I wasn't expecting to see you yet."

He hadn't been expecting to see her at all, and yet here she was, unpacking her things in an office down the hall from his own. On her knees in front of him. 

She wasn't wearing anything special – a white blouse, buttoned up to her collarbone, tucked into a professional, knee-length burgundy skirt. Her shoes didn't even match.

But – he couldn't look away. Could hardly breathe with wanting her. 

It hadn't always been like that, the endless, excruciating desire that he felt now. In the beginning, he had everything so carefully under control. He knew she was attractive – he wasn't blind; he wasn't stupid, either. He was under no delusions about the viability of their arrangement. Sleeping with Hermione Granger had always been something he did on borrowed time, like he was stealing it from someone else's life, someone more deserving, and he  _knew_ that, but then –

But then. Perhaps he was an idiot, after all; he certainly felt like one often enough when he was around her. 

He cleared his throat. "You couldn't have mentioned this?" He unfolded his arms to rap a knuckle against the gold nameplate stuck on her door:  _Hermione Granger, Improper Use of Magic, Statute of Secrecy, Caseworker._  He grimaced. "Quite the mouthful."

She looked up at him, a book in each hand. "I've been told it's the standard nameplate and is not up for negotiation."

Draco's own nameplate read  _Draco Malfoy, Auror Department Adjacent, Dark Arts Consultant_. It was a position that had been created for him after the war when he offered his knowledge and his fortune to avoid Azkaban. They tapped his expertise, but he had kept most of his wealth.

He stepped fully into the office and crouched down across from her, picking up the rest of the fallen books. She shot him a grateful look and stood, laying them on an empty shelf.

"So," he said, standing and placing the books on top of hers. "This was your 'not exactly a proposal', then."

She flushed. "Er. Yes, I–" She busied her hands again, setting the books up and sliding them to the end of the shelf. "I asked to be transferred. As it happens, Ministerial and Secretarial Administration isn't as educational as I thought it would be."

She had transferred into Ministerial and Secretarial Administration four months ago, one month before a dubious threat on the Minister's life had Hermione bringing various office supplies down to his office for protection charms, the precipitant for the situation he now found himself struggling with.

After charming Shacklebolt's third quill, he had asked her, "Is this really your job? Shouldn't someone be bringing your own quills down here by now?"

"It's more than that," she had said with her nose in the air and her jaw tight. "It's just temporary, anyway, until I'm Junior Undersecretary. It's almost a straight shot to Minister."

And she did want to be Minister – that was the one thing he knew best about her, three months later. More than he knew that she had bushy hair and a penchant for academics.

He knew other things about her, too, of course – the way the moonlight made her eyes sparkle and her skin glow. The way her fingers tightened on his waist when he moved her hair away to kiss the curve of her neck. Her laugh. Her smile. Her deep-seated need to please – to please  _him_ , sometimes.

_Her, her, her._ His heart beat with the things that she allowed him to see.

He stared at her. "Are you under some impression that Improper Use is...educational?"

It was lighter in her office. Airy and open, and it reminded him of her. It was perfect for her. A sense of weightlessness settled in his chest, and he felt the small hairs raising on his nape with a prickling sensation that sent a short shiver down his spine.

"It is a bit of a step down." Her teeth scraped her bottom lip absentmindedly as she set up the books. "There weren't any openings I was interested in so they put me here, but I'm really angling for the Investigative Division."

A  _step down_  was being generous – Ministerial and Secretarial Administration was close to the bottom step. They were the team that updated Shacklebolt's calendar when new meeting requests came in and proofread department reports before they made it to the Minister's desk, among other tasks. The moment she stepped into his office that day three months ago, he had known it was too far beneath her. Now, he wanted more for her. She deserved more.

Even his own position was above hers, and Draco wasn't foolish enough to think that he did anything essential for the department. Maybe once, when he had relevant information on Death-Eaters-on-the-run and the common dark spells they employed, but these days he spent most his time organizing and re-organizing the files in his office and, if he were lucky, overseeing the treatment of cursed objects every now and again.

He had hoped, in the beginning, that he might have been integrated into the Auror Department as time went on, but seven years later he was still only loosely connected.

And she was  _Hermione Granger_ , the person who could work wherever she pleased. Undersecretaries and office heads should have been falling over themselves trying to get her into their departments.

He shook his head. "No, that's–" His hand rose to rub a knuckle across his forehead. "Congratulations?"

"I hope it won't be too awkward."

Fuck. Her office was three doors down from his own. His attention was already so focused on her at all hours of the day – even now his mind was racing – and now she was right here, practically within reach. He would be able to hear the echo of her movements through the halls as she traveled around him. Possibly smell the vanilla notes of her perfume or the addictive scent of her shampoo.

Already he was reacting to her, his skin warming and his hands itching to be closer. He pulled at the collar of his shirt.

This was – he couldn't decide. It was either the best or the worst thing to happen to him in recent history, only eclipsed (in both directions) by starting this thing up with her in the first place.

"Potter must be happy," he said, "to have you so close." He looked around the office for pictures or other decorations, but the only one was a muggle photograph of an older man and woman laying flat on her desk.

"Oh." She bent over at the waist to grab another pile of books and Draco averted his eyes, clenching his teeth and directing his gaze to the ceiling. "Yes, I'd imagine so."

She tucked her hair behind her ears as she stood back up, something she did when she was trying to convince herself of something.

"Is it not what you wanted?" he asked.

She sighed and ran her fingers over the cover of the book at the top of the stack. "It is. Well, it will be, in any case. I just wonder if – oh, it's stupid."

 He reached for one of her curls, freeing it from her ear and pulling it down in front of her shoulder, his hand settling at the top of her breast.

She swallowed, her eyes flicking briefly over his shoulder to the door.

"I feel like I should be doing more. There are so many things I want to do, but," she shrugged. "Sometimes I think I'm only getting further away."

He thought of the things his mother used to say, about looking for guidance and finding it in those that came before him. He had been so young, and so hopeful – so naive. He wanted to help her – had a heavy, aching need to do so – but how could he? What sort of answers would someone like him have for her?

What did he have to offer?

He knew one way, at least. The only way, yes, but if it was all he could do –

His fingers skated down to her elbow, and she licked her lips.

With one quick tug, she was pulled into him, a squeak escaping her as his free hand came up to rest lightly on her neck. In one move, he brought his hands together, clasping his fingers together at the back of her neck, and drew her mouth to his.

She was wet and sweet, with a hint of her morning coffee. She started slow, her mouth moving lightly against his own, hesitating. Her hands came to rest on his waist, neither pulling him closer nor pushing him away. He angled her face with his hands, dragging her closer, and with a gentle sigh that had his lungs tightening, her lips parted against his and invited him in.

He pushed his tongue into her mouth, sliding across her bottom lip, and stepped her back until she was pressed against the empty shelves of the bookcase.

"Oh!" She pulled back and brought a hand to rub the back of her head, then grinned up at him with a small laugh before wrapping her hand in his hair and pulling him toward her again. Her nails scraped his scalp, and he shivered, smiling against her lips. He wrapped one arm around her waist, bringing her closer. His other hand wound in her soft curls, his fingers turning into a fist when the familiar scents that he’d come to identify as hers drifted across his skin and wrapped around him.

He moved his hand lower, brushing against the swell of her arse –

"Wait," she breathed, bringing her hands to his chest and pushing him away.

He took a couple steps back, breathing hard.

"Sorry, I just–" she looked down at her blouse, straightening the wrinkles he had given her. Smoothing him away. "I can't, now."

He blinked. He hadn't thought they would –

"But – tonight? Are you free?"

Dazed, he nodded and said, "Yes."

"Okay." She smoothed her hair down in the back, the part that he had spun around his fingers. "I'll owl you."

He was beginning to hate those words.

 

iii.

Draco pulled on his official robes, a simplified version of the traditional Auror uniform, and pulled open the door of his office, almost running into Granger, her hand a fist by her head, poised to knock.

"Oh," she squeaked and dropped her fist down to her side. Her gaze traveled down the snug fit of his robes and back up, meeting his eyes when he coughed pointedly into his fist. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled and he rolled his shoulders back.

"Can it wait, Granger?" he said, shaking out his hands and pulling the door shut behind him. "I'm just on my way out."

Her brow furrowed for a second before she rolled her eyes. "That's not why I'm here, you prat." She held up a familiar looking folder. "Cursed hand mirror in Camden?"

"Where did you get this?" He snatched the folder and flipped it open, seeing the same report that was in his own folder that he'd received half an hour ago in his office.

"It's a muggle neighborhood," she said, then added, "I got one, too."

"They called you?"

"I asked to go."

He eyed her. "This isn't in your scope."

"Accidents and Catastrophes would disagree." She reached over and turned the next page over in the folder, the letter from the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes granting her request to be involved.

He arched a brow.

"You make some good connections when you work on Level 1," she said, which answered his unspoken question, albeit in an irritating and enigmatic way. It made no sense to him, that she could be so well connected and yet they still allowed her to take these jobs that were so far under her.

It was maddening. Granger could have any opportunity she wanted – she had connections on what seemed like every level of the Ministry, she had experience in almost every department, and  _she was on a first-name basis with the bloody Minister_.

Meanwhile, Draco was struggling for recognition, hoping to earn just a sliver of what she had, and even that seemed too much to ask in this small, confining world of theirs. He would do so much to have the things that she was giving up without thought.

He snapped the folder shut and shoved it back toward her, and she grabbed it with two hands, hugging it to her chest.

"I trust you're familiar with the details?"

She schooled her features into a serious expression, but her lips twitched, betraying her thoughts. "Of course."

He leveled his gaze on her. "Repeat them."

"Malfoy, come on, let's just–"

"Granger." He could do his own job correctly, at least.

She shook her head with an exasperated sigh. "Cursed mirror in Regent's Park. Aurors have it quarantined, Muggle-Worthy Excuse Committee has drafted a story and Obliviators are on their way now." She cocked her head. "Satisfied?"

"Not nearly," he muttered.

"I just want to look around a bit, see if I can find anything."

_I feel like I should be doing more_ , she had said.

He jerked his head toward the lifts. "Come on, then, Granger."

 

iv.

He put in a request within the DMLE for a curse-breaker when they returned with the cursed mirror, and the Office for the Removal of Curses, Jinxes, and Hexes sent a young woman named Clara Gauthier the next day. Granger wasn't thrilled.

"I know a curse-breaker," she said after Draco had directed Clara to the containment room. "Bill Weasley, at Gringotts."

"We're not going to ask the department to pay a consultant's fee for a service we provide in-house." He jerked his chin towards the department across the floor of Level 2 and looked back down at the open folder in his hands. "We have curse-breakers here, we're going to use them."

Not to mention it would be a cold day in hell before he asked a Weasley for help.

She followed at his heel as he strode down a side corridor to the containment rooms, the  _click click_  of her heels echoing around them. His hands itched, and he fingered the edges of the folder, folding the corners over and then straightening them again.

When he reached for the door of the containment room, her hand darted out to grab his elbow, and he started.

"Merlin, Granger." He jerked his arm back and shook it out.

"I'm sure they'd be willing to pay extra for the quality of work."

"And I'm sure that Clara is adequately qualified for the job."

Her eyes narrowed. "So that's her name, then. Clara."

"Apparently." Draco held up the folded memo that had found its way to his desk earlier that morning.

She hummed and plucked the memo from his fingers, flattening it against her leg before bringing it up to read. "Clara Gauthier. Specializes in household objects and small knick-knacks."

"How fortuitous. Shall we go in?"

She pressed her lips together and bounced slightly on the balls of her feet, the memo crumpling as her hand fisted. Her eyes slid down his body, catching at his shoulders, his hips, his hands.

Draco could feel the flush rising up his chest. "We're–" he cleared his throat when he heard his voice, low and scratchy. "We're in the hallway." 

"Right."

"Are you going to–"

"Right," she said and opened the door.

Draco hesitated, watching her walk through the doorway, and let his head fall, exhaling a harsh sigh and rubbing at the back of his neck.

Clara had set up her things at the small meeting table on one end of the room, the other occupied by the cursed mirror, laying in a containment cell. She stood by the cell, inspecting the one-way barrier protecting them from the curse. A thin film encircled the mirror in a sphere like a bubble at the level of her chest.

The mirror itself was silver, with ornate detailing on the handle and around the edges. It was old and tarnished, and yet the reflective surface gleamed as if it were brand new.

"This is quite ingenious," Clara said to them over her shoulder when they entered, motioning toward the cell. "This barrier."

"Haven't you seen one before?" Granger asked, chin raised as she made her way to the table. Draco rolled his eyes.

"I – no, not until now." They only used the cells for objects that didn't require touch to set off the curse.

"So you've never worked with complex curses before."

Draco stepped forward. "It's lovely to meet you, Clara. Draco Malfoy." He held out a hand, and Clara shook it firmly.

"Yes," Hermione said, voice clipped, glancing up briefly as she set out her things in front of her. "Pleasure."

"Ignore her," Draco said, "she shouldn't even be involved in this–"

"That is patently false." Granger picked up her quill. "I am the official caseworker from the Improper Use of Magic Office. Since this incident occurred in a muggle neighborhood, my presence here is warranted."

"I'm sorry," Clara said, eyes darting between the two of them. "Have I gotten in the middle of something?"

Granger's presence wasn't exactly warranted. The incident had been wrapped up by Accidents & Catastrophes, and the Aurors has begun their investigation, so the only loose end was the artifact itself, which was Draco's jurisdiction.

She was staying, though. They were in the same room, and they weren't having sex, and she wasn't leaving.

He raised a placative hand. "Of course not. Granger is just going to take some notes." He ignored Granger's  _tuh_. "Let me show you the mirror."

Clara followed him to the containment cell, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with him in front of the cursed mirror. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, their arms grazing each other with every small movement.

He could feel Granger's eyes boring into the back of his head.

He brushed thoughts of her aside. "Found in Regent's Park. Quickly quarantined by Aurors, but we're not sure how long it had been there before that. I was called to the area as soon as they identified it as dark magic."

"What are the effects?" Clara scratched two lines onto her parchment, writing against the folder in her arm. When Draco looked back around to Granger, she was straightening out the barbs at the top of her quill.

"Eccentric behavior, mostly, but organ failure has followed in the muggles we were able to get to. They were sent to St. Mungo's – Accidents and Catastrophes would have a list – and we've alerted nearby hospitals to keep a lookout for certain symptoms."

"Hm." Clara brought a hand to her mouth to trace her lips with the feather of her quill. "Have you done the diagnostic?"

"Of course we've–"

"Yes," Draco interrupted. "I've done the diagnostic, once at the scene and then again, here." He handed her a parchment from his file. She had already been informed of the details, but he never knew how many of his noted observations made it down the line to the curse-breakers before they came in. "Touching causes the behavior, but the reflection is what causes physical damage. It's visually based, and deeply ingrained. There's a protective element, as well. Here, let me–"

He pulled his wand from the inside pocket of his robes.

Clara shifted as his magic settled over them and the containment cell, and she brought her face closer to the barrier when the blue threads of the curse began to appear, actively shifting around themselves and the mirror. Draco pulled her back by her shoulder while he continued casting.

"Fascinating," Clara murmured, and Draco kept a hand on her arm.

Hermione tutted. "I'm sure you've seen a basic diagnostic charm before."

"This isn't a basic diagnostic," Clara said, eyes glued to the cell. "It's...quite thorough. More than I've seen before. You can see...everything." Draco tightened his hold on her arm when she got too close again. "The threads are so clear. Did you create this?"

Draco pushed down a swell of pride. He had spent too much time at the beginning of his tenure dealing with the clumsy diagnostic charms of the Ministry's curse-breakers; their results were accurate, but difficult to assess – the threads were larger, harder to separate.

It had been simple for him, to sharpen the edges and increase the clarity of the movements of the twisting threads as they spun around each other. He had experience, after all, evaluating dark artifacts; they had been littered around his home after the war. He hadn't expected anything to come from his improvements, but he had hoped – to be recognized, to be valued, even just to be thanked – but there had been nothing. As far as he knew, curse-breakers were still taught the inferior standard spell in their training.

"Not entirely. Just adjusted the general spell." He watched Clara's face as she inspected the threads covering the mirror. Her eyes were wide and bright, her body leaned toward it, her hands fidgeting. She glanced at him from the corner of her eye.

"If the curse causes behavioral changes, that's likely a Mysteries case."

That had been his first thought upon reaching Regent's Park. The Aurors had quarantined the area with muggle-repelling charms and were patrolling the area, the Obliviators were working with the muggles who hadn't needed to go to St. Mungo's, and Granger had started chatting with a representative from the Muggle-Worthy Excuse Committee.

The mirror had been cordoned off with a similar yet less effective version of these containment cells, strong enough to hold while Draco ran a simple ID on the curse and cleared it to be moved to one of the containment rooms. Meanwhile, the Aurors began their investigation that he wasn't allowed to be a part of.

Luckily, he wasn't required to have Auror supervision for this part.

"Yes, I had written that," he leaned over her shoulder to look at his notes, and pointed to a spot in the middle, "here." He stepped back, and her eyes returned to the blue twisting threads, knotting around each other. "But if you can separate out the second bit–"

"It'll be tricky. There's...a lot here." She took a careful step closer to the cell, lifting her head up and tilting it to each side, taking in the strands. She gave him a small smile. "Your spell will definitely help, though."

He swallowed, warmed by the compliment. Merlin, he was such a sap.

When he sat back down at the table, Hermione was glaring at him. "Laying it on a bit thick, don't you think?" Her voice was low and quiet, and her eyes flicked toward Clara and then back. 

"I don't know what you're talking about."

She scowled and kicked his leg under the table.

"I'm just being polite."

Granger snorted. "Doesn't sound like you."

"Yes, well," he shrugged and leaned back in his chair – he hadn't realized the chairs could recline like that – adding, "she seems to know the limitations of her job description, so I thought I might give it a go."

She drummed her fingers against the table. The tables weren't very wide, and he could feel the heat from her legs on his own.

Clara shifted between her feet, her arm steady and her wand trained on the spell. Her other hand rested against her face, moving from her chin to her cheek to her neck in her deep focus.

Granger adjusted herself in her chair and her foot knocked into his. He pulled his feet back underneath him.

It was clear that Clara knew what she was doing, however new she was to the department. Her wandwork was careful and precise as she tugged on each section of the curse, determining order, potency, and purpose, and tagging them with small, unobtrusive markings. Every so often she would pull back to write something down.

Granger sighed, a soft, relaxed hum, and he almost jumped when her foot slid right up next to his, arch to arch, with a light – but undeniably present – pressure. His breath caught and he looked across the table at her. Her eyes were directed at Clara, her lips tight. He returned her gesture with a press of his foot and a wrinkle deepened at the corner of her lips.

Clara was – she was still standing by the cell, of course, her wand moving as she sorted through the tagged strands and knots before changing her focus to the outermost strand. Her stance shifted back as she pulled on it once, testing it. It was good that she was so careful, because you could never know – and sure, the cells were impenetrable, but –

Granger's foot was moving. It was moving, it was hooking around his ankle, his Achilles tendon, and – when had she taken off her shoes? – pulling it forward, out from underneath his chair and closer to her.

It was...innocent, right? She was just – touching him with her feet. It was no different than if she were to touch his arm, perhaps, or his shoulders. She wasn't – she wouldn't, anyway. He wiped a clammy hand against his thigh.

She made her way up his leg, her toes weaving around his calf like they were looking for something, pushing and clenching and  _teasing_ , and it was all inconsistent, unpredictable, in a way that had him keyed up and jittery as she kept him on his – well. On his toes, as it were.

Clara. Clara was – she was still there, she was – it was very serious work, and this was –

He steeled himself, and when he looked up, the corner of Granger's lips was quirked. Innocent. Knowing. He cursed under his breath, and she brought a hand to her mouth to cover a smile.

Her toes hooked behind his knee, and she ran them back and forth over the soft, sensitive skin there. The light touch of her feet – her  _feet_ , for Merlin's sake – were doing such obscene things to his insides, twisting his gut and sending a shock of desire through him, and he felt it all the way down to his heel. He didn't even know that this innocuous spot on his leg could create sensations like that, or maybe it was just her and what he knew she could do to him.

He licked his lips, and Granger's eyes darkened across from him. The memory of her body, in his arms, pressed against him, was pulled against his will into the forefront of his mind.

This was how he was going to die, then. He was going to drop dead right here because his heart was pounding with such speed and intensity that could only mean that there was something wrong with it. He had read about something called tachycardia, and it was the only thing that made sense because Granger wasn't even  _doing_ anything to him – she was just running her foot up his leg and biting her lip and looking at him like – like –

"Granger," he hissed, turning it into a cough when Clara glanced back over her shoulder.

Granger canted her head, resting her chin on her clasped hands, and gave him the smuggest grin he'd ever seen grace her face. It was horrible, terrible, dreadful, and so, so arousing. He shifted in his seat, adjusting himself as his cock stirred and her toes circled his knee. She bit her lip with a light, teasing hum, and fucking Merlin, she was doing that on purpose.

A deep sigh from Clara brought him back – to the  _containment room_  at the  _Ministry of fucking Magic_. He coughed into his fist as Granger traced the insides of his thigh and his trousers grew uncomfortably tight.

"Everything alright?" He said, attempting a natural voice that came out slightly high-pitched.

Clara was scribbling on her parchment again, having taken a step back from the cell. "Not quite," she said. She lifted her wand and looked at him over her shoulder.

"This," she plucked at one of the strings and the visual representation of dark magic emanated like steam from it in thin black clouds, "affects brain activity, as you said. I don't have the proper clearance to remove it."

He sighed. "That's as expected." That meant that he would have to send it to Mysteries, who looked at curses affecting brain activity as a side-project for the Brain Room.

He couldn't think too hard on it, though, because Granger was increasing the pressure on his thigh, getting closer, closer –

He shifted his hips forward the tiniest bit, searching, reaching out for her, his cock fully hard against his thigh. He heard Granger move in her chair and clear her throat, but he refused to look at her, see the expression on her face, the heat in her eyes.

"Unfortunately," Clara went on, "it's rooted in the reflection as well, as a – a preemptive measure, it looks like." She bit her cheek and gestured to the cell. "I've done all I can."

Draco raised his head and squinted towards the containment cell and could see the entwined strands, circling and knotting around the handle of the mirror. The containment cell wasn't intricate enough to disentangle the strands while keeping the part of the curse affecting the brain intact for Mysteries to research.

"We'll have the send the whole thing down to–" _Mysteries_ , he was going to say, but he cut himself off abruptly when his hand slammed down on the tabletop because Granger had chosen that precise moment to –  _ohfuckohfuck_  – press her foot directly over his cock, rubbing her arch back and forth over him. He could feel himself throb under her ministrations, reacting to the unpredictable pressure of her foot, and when she pointed her toes forward and was able to press the whole damn thing harder into his thigh, and it was so... _enclosed_ , with the heat from his leg on one side and  _her fucking foot_  on the other, so tight and –

He slid his hand under the table, picking her foot up and holding it still. He needed to –

Request wider tables, first of all. First thing the next day, he was going to.

"Sorry," he gasped and coughed. "Sorry." He gestured to his throat. "Wrong pipe."

Granger turned her head to hide her mouth in her hand.

Clara sat down next to him, and he dropped Granger's foot to the floor. He stepped on it for good measure. He stepped on the other as well.

"My notes," Clara said, and she slipped her parchment in front of him. He scooted his chair forward, hiding his inappropriate erection under the table and bumping Granger's knees.

"Looks to be in order," he said, getting his breathing under control. He pulled at his collar to cool his neck.

Clara clasped her hands on the tabletop. "That spell," she began with hesitation.

He raised a brow.

"I don't mean to overstep, I just. I've never heard of anything that detailed, even around the office. With that kind of precise wand-work – you could be a curse-breaker, you know."

Clara was clearly several years younger than them and wasn't aware of Draco's history. There was a reason he was still just a low-level consultant – if he had been offered a real job anywhere, he would have taken it.

"That's kind of you to say," he said. "I'm afraid that's impossible, though – not while I'm still in London, at least." Granger was frowning when he looked over at her, expecting some amount of sympathy. Instead, she slipped her feet out from under his and began running her toes up his leg again. His thighs tensed and he only barely bit back a needy sound from the back of his throat.

"Well," Clara offered, "My father has an 'in' with the French Ministry if you ever get tired of it here."

"Let's keep the treason to a minimum," Granger said, snapping her folder shut and pressing her foot harder into his crotch. "Are we done here?"

"I'll contact you with the final report for the Aurors," Draco managed to say through his clenched teeth, as Granger's foot continued to massage his swollen prick. When he finally heard the door click closed, he let out the moan he had been holding in for the last fifteen minutes.

"Fuck, Granger." She closed her toes around his shaft through his trousers, and his head fell back against the chair.

It was too good – his forehead was breaking out in a sweat, his stomach was clenching. Wherever this was going, it was going to be fast. He wasn't going to last, and he needed to – he needed –

He met her eyes across the table.

They pushed back from their chairs at the same moment after one intense second of heated eye contact, and in the next he had spun her around and slammed her back against the wall, cradling the back of her head. Her lips were chapped and warm, and he nibbled his way across them, working her bottom lip into his mouth and laving at it.

"You fucking minx," he muttered against her, and she grinned as he left her mouth for her cheek, her jaw, her neck. Her hands came up to the buttons of his robes, fumbling over them in a desperate scramble. He parted her legs with his knee and pressed his thigh between hers, pushing his hips against her and nearly crying out with the small bit of relief it gave him. Sparks shot through him, down his spine, up his legs, and he wanted – wanted everything.

"We should–" she opened the top button and moved on to the next. "We should talk about what to do next."

He met her eyes, her fingers brushing over his chest as they moved down his buttons. He pressed a hand into the wall by her head as he continued to thrust against her, his breath quickening as he felt a wave building inside him. "We do nothing," he said, and her hands stopped. "Keep going, fuck–"

"What do you mean we do nothing?" He pushed his chest toward her, trying to coax her back to him, but she didn't move.

"We give it to Mysteries." At her extended silence, he pulled his head back and grabbed her jaw, eyes darting between hers. "Is something wrong?"

"Mysteries?" He nodded. "We don't – we just give up?"

Draco had no desire to walk through his process with her, especially now when his cock was jerking against her hip and her hands were still brushing his chest in a delicious way that made his head spin.

He removed his other hand from her hair and squeezed her shoulder, skimming the skin down to her elbow. "We give it to the department more equipped than we are."

"But it's –"

"Granger." His hand skated up her arm to her breasts, cupping one through her shirt and running his thumb back and forth across the swell of her. She made a short, desperate sound. "Stop talking." He brushed his other thumb across her lips. "Please."

Swallowing, she nodded and reached for the zip of his trousers, and he could have sung at the light touches she gave him through the fabric. She undid the zip and pushed his trousers and pants down to the ground and then she took him in her hand.

Small, needy noises escaped him as she dragged her hand back and forth over his cock in the infuriating and intoxicating way she always did and he couldn't help but watch her. Watch her hand as she worked him from root to tip, gathering the precum and slicking him down from the head. Her grip was torturous, something just tight enough to keep him teetering on the edge, pleasure coiling up tight inside him, waiting. 

He batted her hand away and grabbed her thighs, lifting her up to wrap her legs around his waist. Her cheek was pressed up against his own, her hot breath hitting his ear. He shivered and shifted her in his arms. Her hands wound around his neck and kept him close. He slipped an arm around her hips, holding her up against the cold, grey wall of the containment room.

He moved his other hand to his cock, giving it a quick squeeze at the base as she reached down to pull aside her knickers. He positioned himself at her entrance, running up and down the lips of her cunt.

He met her eyes, and she nodded, her bottom lip sucked between her teeth.

He slipped into her.

Every time held the same novelty and wonder of the first time when he could hardly believe what was happening and praying it'd never stop. Her small gasp brushed his ear, and she clenched down on him as he slid in to the hilt. He could predict the spasms of her fingers against his neck and the intimate way that she turned her face into his cheek. The tickle of her breath against the sensitive skin under his jaw.

And he couldn't believe that she was letting him do this, letting him see her this way, her lips parted, her eyes shut, her skin flushed. He wanted her so fiercely it was hard to breathe.

He started a steady rhythm, rocking into her while she met him every time. His breath quickened, and he swiveled his hips, changing the angle of his thrusts and pushing in deeper. Warmth and desire spread through him, building him up, and it was so good. So  _tight, hot, we_ t.

"You're so fucking beautiful," he murmured.

"Oh, god." Their teeth clacked together when she kissed him, hard and hungry, and pulled his head away with a tug to his nape. "Can you. Um." She swallowed, her eyes squeezed shut and her breath coming in pants. He wrapped one hand around her back, the other still firmly holding her up under her arse, and pressed his face into her neck, kissing the curve of it, inhaling the scent of her sweat and perfume. "Say more – like that."

He paused. They hadn't done anything like that before, but he felt the insurmountable urge to please her welling up inside him. His tongue darted out to lave her pulse point as he moved his lips up to her ear.

She shuddered when he brought his teeth over it, tracing the shell and tugging at the lobe. He began moving again, groaning into her ear as he slid out and back in, his skin burning. He licked his lips and took a breath. "You're so beautiful," he repeated, and she squeaked, clenching around him. It sounded like she was holding it back. He wanted to hear her.

"Merlin," he continued. "Just look at you, Granger. You're so fucking sexy. I get hard just thinking about you." He dropped his hand to her skirt, flipping it up over her hips. He glanced down between them, his forehead leaning on her neck, and watched as he disappeared inside her. "Even when I'm in my office, I think about you – your hair." He moved his hands to her curls.

"More," she breathed, and his hand clenched tighter in her hair. The arm holding her up was shaking.

"Wait," he said and slipped out of her. He unwound her legs with a press to her thighs, and she dropped down to the floor. "I want–" He didn't want her up against a wall. He wanted to lay her down, watch her hair fan over the pillows. Wanted to watch her ride him as he said these things that sounded too reverent to his ears.

He looked around them – there was the table, chairs, or the ground. The containment cell, if they were up for acrobatics and dark magic. Chair it was. "Here."

It wasn't the most comfortable chair, but it was firm, and it didn't have arms so it would do in a pinch, which this was. He dragged her by the wrist to the chair and pulled it out, throwing himself into it unceremoniously and pulling her back onto him.

Granger peeked over the side of the chair. "I think there's–" She grabbed her wand from the table and tapped the chair twice, and suddenly Draco was moving backward, reclining.

"Fuck. Yes."

She threw her wand to the ground and grasped his face. "Keep going," she said, dropping her lips to his again. "Please."

His hands rubbed up and down her thighs as she lifted up, wrapping her fingers around his shaft and positioning him at her entrance once more. He bunched her skirt, using both fists this time, and released a high-pitched groan as he watched her sheath him inside of her.

"Draco," she gasped, and he squeezed his eyes shut, his thighs seizing and his stomach taut as he tried to keep himself from coming at the sound of his name on her lips for the first time. He shifted his hand to her clit, starting small circles around it, trying to get her to where he was.

"Granger. You –  _fuck_." He took two gasping breaths and opened his eyes to see her watching him. He felt a little ridiculous, both at what she wanted him to do and the fact that he was so close to coming after what felt like two minutes. His body throbbed with need, aching for her.

Her hands moved out of his hair to touch his cheek – just the pads of her fingers against his flushed, sweaty skin. It was too tender. He pressed harder against her, tightening the swirls of his thumb.

He poured everything into her – his frustration with her, with his career, with his perpetually undervalued talents and the way his life had gone up to this point. His stupid, ill-advised hope at Clara's notice of his potential. The fact that it had been seven years and he was only becoming less and less, and the fear that, if he continued, he might just disappear altogether.

She took it; she took all of him, devouring him and holding him close. She was all he had, this beautiful, irritating witch sliding over his shaft, taking him all the way in. She kissed him desperately, like she'd never get the chance again, reclining in a cheap office chair just feet away from a cursed artifact. He didn't care - he'd have her here. He'd have her anywhere.

He swallowed. "You drive me crazy. So fucking mad. All the time."

"God." She ground down against him, and he cried out, grasping her hips tightly and keeping her around him. He still wasn't sure if he was doing this right, but the way she was responding –

"You're perfect," he said in a breath, his thrusts growing erratic. "So fucking – just." He dragged his hands up her chest under her shirt, palming her breasts. "So kind." He circled her nipples with his thumbs, and she arched into him with another tight keening sound that he wished was louder. "So strong." He wound his hands up her neck and into her curls. "So brave. Granger, I need–"

He didn't know what he needed.  _More_. More of her, all the time. He wanted to keep the memory of her locked in his bones. He could feel his orgasm coming, building up, any second.

"Yes." She leaned over and kissed him hard, her tongue pushing into his mouth and sliding against his own. He tugged at her hair, tilting her head slightly for deeper access and tasted every part of her he could reach.

He lingered on the edge, his chest tingling and his skin hot and sweaty. He felt his balls tightening, drawing close, but he couldn't – he didn't want to – there was so much more he wanted to say to her.

He felt her walls fluttering around him and tried to hold on, tried to stave off his orgasm for just long enough to tell her –

"Granger," he gasped. "Hermione, I –" His voice was an embarrassing whine, and he could feel it boiling over, this thing inside him that felt  _so good_.

"I know," she whispered into his neck. "I know, Draco."

His hands found themselves on her arse, kneading his fingers into her cheeks, caressing them, and pressing her against him, keeping him inside of her as everything in him tipped over. She circled her hips, working him through the overmounting pleasure, and he dragged his hands up to her waist and looped his arms around her, clinging to her. Her head dipped close and her teeth closed around the shell of his ear, and he came with her name on his lips, shuddering and pulsing within her as she sighed her own release into his neck.

 

v.

It was a week before she approached him again, knocking on the door of his office with her shoulders tight and her legs fidgeting.

They left the containment room after they had both finished, neither of them talking until they went their separate ways. It was different, that time. It was...intimate. Special. He didn't know if she meant for it to happen.

He waited for her to come to him. He left his office door open and strained his ears listening for her. Waiting for the  _click click_  of her heels down the hall, or the sound of her voice as she spoke through the Floo.

Nothing.

After three days, he closed his door.

It was too much, the things he had said. He made it too real. He felt exposed.

It didn't come as a surprise when he opened the door with his wand and she said, "I don't think we should see each other any more in – in a non-work capacity," while her fingers twisted in the hem of her shirt and her weight shifted from one foot to the other.

"I think we both know that this thing is...problematic."

He'd rather have been punched in the gut. She was so detached - so unlike the woman a week ago, breathing his name into his neck and shattering around him.

"Problematic." He thought about his stars, and the inevitability of them. How he could cover the world in darkness powder, or disillusion the entire night sky, or even just scream at them for the rest of his life, and they'd keep coming back, with total disregard for him and his distress. Like thousands – millions – of wands shining their light down and unmasking him.

"We're just so – volatile. And I can't –" She grimaced as she struggled for the words. "It's too much."

"Volatile." He felt his pulse beat beneath his skin. In his thigh, where she had dragged her toes around him; in his fingers that had found their place wound in her curls; in the curve of his neck, where she had groaned his name into him. His body thrummed.

She tucked her hair behind her ear – her tell. "I need to focus on my career."

He wanted to laugh, because it was so clear to him now, what she was doing – with her career and her relationships alike. Whenever her career began to progress, whenever she got closer to the ministership – the thing she claimed she wanted more than anything – she found a reason to do something else. She was doing the same thing with him.

She was hiding.

"Do you really want to be Minister?"

Her brows drew together. "Of course I do," she said, with an air of incredulity, "that's what this has all been about."

"Has it?" He walked around his desk and leaned against the other side. "Sticking your nose into projects that aren't yours. Transferring from one menial job to another–"

"They're not menial."

"You continue to take positions that are far below your capabilities," he said. "You've had three in just the past year."

She took two steps into his office. "Your point." It wasn't a request so much as it was a demand.

He shook his head, holding up a hand to stop her. "Wanting to be Minister isn't an explanation – it's an excuse."

Hermione froze. "I beg your pardon?"

He flicked his wand to close the door of his office and let it roll across his desk when he dropped it. He jerked his chin up. "You were going to be Junior Undersecretary – they were just going to give it to you – and you moved. It was the same before that. Are you really going to be in the Investigative Division? Or will you just jump ship –  _again_."

She gaped at him. "I didn't  _jump ship–_ "

"You were working in the Minister's office!" He was nearly shouting. His fist hit the desk at his side with a sharp  _thud_. "You were next in line to be Junior Undersecretary! How on  _Earth_  would Improper Use be more advantageous?"

She pushed her hair behind her ear again, and he remembered how it felt wrapped around his fingers. "I admit it's not a conventional track, but–"

"And your friends!" he pointed out towards the hall as if her multitude of friends were waiting on the other side of the door. "You have no pictures, you're here all hours of the day doing Merlin knows what so I'm pretty sure you don't see anyone. Potter hasn't been down this hall since you've started, and that was almost a month ago!"

Her glare was instantly murderous. "That's none of your business."

"That's not my point, you–" he broke off with a growl and gripped his hair in his hands. "You have all these things that you think are yours," he said in a rush, almost on an exhale. "Just by virtue of being you. But they're not. Being Minister," he listed them off on his fingers, "getting involved in whatever project you want, and," he hesitated, but went on, "and me."

Her arms fell to her sides. "You."

"You know how I feel." His voice felt heavy and thick as the admission slid like molasses through his teeth. "I know you do. I'm not an idiot. It's why you always leave so quickly – after. It's why – why you didn't tell me about your transfer." Memories from the last four months swirled in his mind and began to settle into place. He pressed his palms into the desk, the smooth wood cold under his heated skin.

"Draco, please–"

_Fuck_. He was reminded of the last time she called him that – when she was clenching around his cock as he buried himself in her.

Merlin, how had he been so stupid? "That's why–" The words stuck in his throat; he tried again. "That's why," he repeated. "You knew I would. You were feeling helpless and self-conscious, and you knew that I would."

He had said so many things to her, made himself vulnerable in a way that he never had. And it had been for nothing. 

"No, Draco, I–"

" _Stop calling me that_."

Her teeth clenched together. A huff of air escaped through her nose. Then, abruptly, "What would you have me do, Malfoy?" Her nostrils flared, and she looked away with a hollow, breathy laugh. "You fancy yourself in love with me–"

"I never said  _that_."

"–but would you have actually ever done anything about it?"

He pursed his lips. "That's beside the point."

"You wouldn't. Because you don't do anything about anything!" Her eyes were wide and earnest, her arms gesticulating wildly in front of him, in the middle of his office. "And I don't know if it's just laziness or some twisted form of retribution, but–"

" _Lazy_?"

"You barely have a job. Any investigative work goes to the Auror's, and if it's too hard for you – Mysteries. You don't even do any curse-breaking, even though I'm almost positive you have the knowledge, so why exactly are you still here?"

He straightened his shoulders. "That's out of line–"

" _You_ should be in Mysteries," she said, and his breath, which had been heaving in and out of his burning lungs, left him in a rush. Even she looked surprised that she had said it, her eyes wide and her hand coming up to cover her mouth with a squeak.

It hung between them. He glanced away, bringing his hand up to rub at his eyes. When he looked back, her hands were on her hips, and her gaze was steeled and determined.

"You should be in Mysteries," she repeated with a firm nod, and he could tell that she believed it from the look on her face and the glint in her eye. Naivete didn't look good on her, despite her belief in him. It made him feel sick. "Your attention to detail, your wand-work. It's – it's good, Draco."

He collected himself. "You think they'd let me even think about Mysteries? You think they'd actually allow someone like me–"

"But you haven't even tried! Draco," she continued, softer, "do you think they would have let you anywhere near Kingsley's things if they didn't trust you?"

Draco faltered. "It was just a couple of quills–"

"That belonged to the damn Minister for Magic! Anyone could have set those protection charms." She laughed again, and it was grating and unsettling. "Hell,  _I_ could have set them! But they wanted  _you_."

His jaw clenched.

"You're wasted here, you know you are, but you keep – keep limiting yourself! You refuse to take any sort of risk – with your work, with me, with – and – and you're one to talk about friends, by the way!" She  _tuh_ ed loudly, turning around and throwing her hands in the air.

It was a low blow, considering she knew precisely where his friends were, scattered after the war. She had known since the fourth time she came to his flat and asked about the photos on his bookshelf; Pansy had gone to the French countryside, Blaise to Italy, and Theo to a small island in a wizarding archipelago in the Caribbean as a last 'Fuck You' to his father and his fortune.

She spun back like she had more to say, and he pushed off the desk and stalked towards her. He spoke as the words came, wanting to keep her from saying those ridiculous, substantial things that he wasn't ready to think about.

"I may not be a high-ranking employee, Granger, but I'm not stupid; I know how the world works. You've got these rose-colored–"

"Oh, would you  _stop_  feeling sorry for yourself!" Her hand came up in a fist, and for a second he was afraid she might punch him, but then she shouldered past him, fist pressed against her forehead.

"You're so good at playing the part of the poor, helpless outcast," she said. "Where's the Draco Malfoy who fought for himself, who had the most irritating amount of confidence, who – who – who was willing to do  _anything_  for the people he cared about–"

"Off-limits," he growled, his lips pulling back.

She waved her hand to the side. "Forget that then, but–" her fists pressed against her chest. "You can't think this is all there is for you."

" _Yes_ , Granger, it is." He was almost snarling at her, spit collecting in the corners of his mouth. "Do you remember the things that I've done? Because they do!" He flung his arm out towards the door. She didn't see it – the way his work was discounted, how his projects were dwindling. "You don't know what you're saying."

She spoke in a low, terrible voice. "I'm saying that you should have some fucking respect for yourself before you expect anyone else to."

"You don't know what you're saying," he repeated. "And that's rich, coming from you. Do you find hiding from success to be a respectable undertaking?"

"I'm not hiding – but if I were, you'd certainly make it easy for me!"

His gut roiled as the floor fell out from under him, and he cleared his throat. "So, you used me. That's –" he broke off, his throat sticky and dry. "Is that it?"

"No – Are you listening to yourself? You're using  _me_!" Her voice had turned to a harsh whisper, the air hitting him in a small gust of breath. It felt like it was knocking him over.

"Draco," she went on. "It's not love, what you feel."

It was a blow to his chest. "I never said–"

"It's not love," she repeated. "It's just one more way for you to feel helpless, to act like you don't have a choice, and that it's not your fault that you're stuck in a crap job that makes you unhappy." Her chin was trembling as she spoke. "Because if nothing is your fault, then you don't have to  _do_ anything about it. That's why – your job that I know you hate –"

"I don't hate it."

"– not your fault, then you don't have to put yourself out there to do something different. Even though the Auror Department and the Minister both trust you, and you could easily find a better job."

"Stop, Granger, you're being naive-"

"It's the same with – with me." Her voice dropped, quivering, but she kept on, her expression steely. "You'll never risk anything because you only know how to feel sorry for yourself. I deserve more than that."

Thoughts circled around his mind. Her dislike of Clara, who he was kind to and who was kind to him. The way Hermione begged him to tell her she was beautiful. He recalled how she always left, and how he let her. How she kissed with hesitation until he poured himself into her. How she was always the one to owl him – how she always came to him.

She was wrong, though. It might not have been love, but it was  _something_ , and it was something that she couldn't take from him – had no right to. If he had more to offer her, things would be different. If she had any reason at all to admire him, it would be different.  _He_  would be different. But all he had was his dead-end job and talents that would never be utilized, and so he clung to what he could have from her.

"You're wrong." He shook his head. "It was more. It's more than that."

"I've – I've ignored it, until now. Until–" She flushed and glanced to the side, and he knew she was thinking of the last time they were together.

_You are so beautiful,_ he had said.  _So kind. So strong. So brave._

"But it's not healthy, for either of us." Her hands shook as she brought them to his chest, and they both watched her fingers pressing into the fabric. "You were so focused on proving yourself. I think you forgot that you  _have_. And until you can see that – I can't be the one to fix you."

He grabbed her hands and held them against his heart, thumping wildly in his chest. His head was dizzy. "Hermione," he murmured.

She took a shaky breath and swiped at her eyes before stepping back. "I need to go."

She threw the door open, and it slammed behind her, Draco's wand hitting the wood when he threw it after her.

He stood there for several minutes, hands clasped behind his neck, his eyes glued to the door like he thought it might open again, and she would come back, and they could forget the whole thing – forget everything but them.

But they couldn't, could they? Because  _everything but them_ also included Draco's terrible job and how it shaped him and robbed him of his drive and his ambition, and it also included Hermione's fear (or whatever it was) of finding success. Her words echoed in his ears – when she begged him to tell her she was good enough.

He fell back into his chair and tipped his head back, dizzy and nauseous. What was wrong with them?

He didn't need to be fixed. He needed to be taken seriously, to be respected, to do something with this directionless path he was on. But he couldn't put it all on the line like that – he  _couldn't_ , just the thought of it made his heartbeat quicken and his neck sweat. After the years he had spent at the bottom, the idea of facing his colleagues in the DMLE and asking for more; the thought of facing  _Hermione_ and asking for more – he couldn't. He just couldn't.

He dropped his head. Hermione was right. He kept himself down because he didn't know how to get back up. Not here, at least, where everything reminded him of why he was down to begin with.

It wasn't good, he realized, what they had. She could forever try to force his feelings out of him, begging for someone to see her as she was, and he would always give her only half of what she wanted, claiming it was her fault in the first place.

Neither of them could be happy if this went on.

 

vi.

He couldn't stay, so he left.

His transfer was made official one week after the argument, her clenched fists and raging eyes tattooed on the back of his eyelids.

Clara, as it turned out, had been serious about her father having an 'in' with the French Ministry, and it involved no treason at all. She was able to get in touch with him on short notice and convince him to pull some strings to recommend him for a one-year contract position in the  _Bureau des Accidents et Catastrophes Magiques_.

Clara was optimistic that he would be able to get his foot in the door as a curse-breaker at the British Ministry after his year in France ended if he chose to return. He hadn't decided if he would.

She also asked about 'the uptight one', which gave Draco the biggest laugh he'd had in weeks.

The position in France was low-level, even more so than his job as a Dark Arts Consultant, but it came with opportunity. He could make something of himself with no stigma, whether or not it came from within himself. He didn't have to hold himself back anymore.

Money had been a convincing factor, and he thanked Merlin the Ministry hadn't cleared out his vaults after the war.

It was a chance to be born – like his stars, millions of years ago. A chance to be brighter.

He was set to leave two weeks after the argument.

 

vii.

The first time she came to his flat without the express purpose of sex was one week before he left for France.

"So, you're really leaving."

His head snapped up from where he was crouched by a box on the floor to see her leaning against the doorframe. Her arms were folded across her chest, and her weight was resting on one foot, the other crossed at the ankles.

He spent a moment drinking her in, from her feet to her frizzy hair. He had forgotten to update his wards after they fought.

"I am," he said, rubbing his hands together as he stood.

"It wasn't my intention for you to go."

His lips twisted, his chest tightening. "I know."

She stepped beyond the threshold and looked around his sitting room. Most of his things had been packed into boxes and his furniture shrunken, ready to be transported to Paris.

"Are you okay?"

She hadn't spoken to him since their argument, and he hadn't sought her out. It was just like them – she was hiding, and he was too scared to risk anything. It was so sickeningly like them.

It was why he had to leave.

"You were right," he said. "I think I need some space. Get some distance."

"Paris, though?"

He shrugged. "Clara was–"

"Of course," she said, cutting him off.

They were so enabling. So bad for each other, the people they were at that moment. How had it taken him this long to see?

"Did you need something?"

She rubbed her palms against her jeans. "I wanted to set the record straight, before...before." She gestured to the boxes scattered around them. "I didn't want our last conversation to be – well."

He kicked the box beside him out of the way and stepped towards her.

"First of all," she said, holding up a finger. "Harry and I are very close. I babysat his kids last week. I'm godmother to his eldest. Do you understand?"

"Alright." That was the least important thing he had said the week before. It was something that had just come to him, the memory of her unpacking her office and not having any pictures of her friends. She seemed the type who would, was all.

"I've been pushed into a lot of things. This world, the war," she ticked them off on her fingers. "Kingsley offered me a job after my NEWTs, and I took it."

He watched her, her eyes darting around the room and her legs fidgeting.

"There's a lot of expectation, you see. It's just – being me. People come to conclusions about what I should be doing."

He came closer to her until he could reach out and skim his knuckles up her arm.

She closed her eyes. "I don't want to just do what everyone expects, Draco. I want to be able to do things on my terms when I'm ready." She was looking at him with such an earnest expression like she needed him to understand this – needed to have him on her side.

He tugged on a curl, twirling it around his finger. "You don't have to be Minister, you know."

She took a deep breath through her nose and opened her eyes. They were red. "I didn't expect you to understand." She smiled sadly at him, and it sank down into his knees.

"Make me, then," he said.

Understand why she would stay in these positions when she could be doing something – something real and respected and valued.

She swallowed. "I'm not ready to be the things that everyone thinks I'm going to be. As soon as I start moving up, people – speculate. There's money on it, even, with odds and everything. And I just – I put enough pressure on myself."

His lips turned up, and she rolled her eyes. "I know, okay? I – I only want some time to come to terms with it all. I don't want to be pushed into it. If – when – I do become Minister, I'll owe my constituents that much."

He didn't know whether to shake her for her political ignorance or kiss her for how good she was.

"I'm not hiding," she said, and at his pointed look she repeated, "I'm not. I'm just...laying low. Until they lose interest."

"Where no one can find you – figuratively."

She grimaced. "It's different. These positions are rarely talked about or reported on, but they  _are_  important, in the big picture."

She hadn't had the life-changing revelations that Draco had had, it seemed.

"I'm sorry," he said, "for how I treated you. I didn't know–" he shook his head. "But you were right."

"I should have stopped it when I knew. Shouldn't have let it get as far as it did. I was just–"

"Hiding."

"I wanted something to be mine, even if you didn't see me – the way I saw you." She took his hand where it lay on her shoulder, patting it.

"I did." He grasped her hands tightly. "I  _do_."

He had figured it out shortly after she walked out of his office. That even though he was using her as a way to keep himself in his cycle of inferiority, she used him too. She used him for validation, as a way to feel adequate when she so severely and intentionally undervalued herself.

_I can't be the one to fix you_ , she said. He couldn't do that for her, either. He doubted she would listen to him.

She looked past him, eyes catching on the boxes, the shrunken furniture, the empty space. She sighed. "I hope – I hope France works out for you."

He kissed her once more, his fingers tugging on her curl, her lips a light press against his own.

Then she was gone.

 

viii.

Some things improved and others did not.

Instead of an office, he was given a desk in a block of cubicles. His space came with an old quill that had fallen between the desk and the cubicle wall, three neighbors with irritatingly friendly dispositions, and an opportunity to be something without cutting himself off at every turn.

_Draco Malfoy_ , his nameplate said,  _blank slate_. Or, that's what he imagined it saying.

Draco dated.

He met a woman named Juliet at the cafe by his flat, a month after moving to Paris. She had two cats who scratched up his arms and a love of books that was painfully familiar.

There was another woman who worked at the French Ministry who sat two desks down from him. They went on three dates before she told him that she was transferring departments, and he reacted so negatively to the news that she had to take him home, holding his shaking arm.

He came to the conclusion that he was a little messed up.

He met up with Pansy frequently, and it was like they were never apart at all, talking about the people they knew in school, discussing their careers and their hopes for the future – and he had those now. He could talk about his work, and though it wasn't much more than he had been doing in London, he could feel a bit of pride in it. Already he was gaining more trust, more responsibility, and after only a few months. He had been at the British Ministry for seven years and had never felt so optimistic.

He kissed Pansy once, the second time they met up, and they decided mutually to never let it happen again.

He stood outside his flat at night, looking up into the sky and trying to figure out where he fit into it. He found his stars, his constellation, a large, looming presence that once made him feel significant but now made him feel so small. He tried to find his ancestors above him like his mother taught him to do when he was a boy, but he only saw a mess of stars surrounding him.

Perhaps that was for the best; they hadn't done much for him.

He tried to forget Hermione, that squeaking sound she made when she was surprised, the spark of passion in her eyes when she fought with him. He couldn't forget; he could never.

 

ix.

The second time Hermione came to his flat unannounced was four months after he left for Paris.

"I want to be Minister," she said when he cracked open the door.

"Okay." He moved his hand up the door and opened it fully.

"I do. You don't get to take that from me." She held her cloak out, and he took it from her, the fabric slotting between his fingers. It smelled like fresh air and Hermione Granger.

He didn't respond, but he closed the door and leaned back against it, eyeing her.

"You were right about some things," she continued, then held up a hand. "Not all of them."

He lifted his chin. "How did you find me?"

"I told you – I have connections."

"That sounds illegal," he pointed out.

She smirked. "Only slightly."

He hung up her cloak and led her into the sitting room, and at the sight of his furniture, in a similar set-up as in his London flat, her lips twitched.

"Is there a reason you're here, or…"

She turned to face him.

"I thought a lot about what you said, you know," she spun her hand into the air, "about not needing to be Minister, and how I was hiding from myself. And I decided you were right."

His mouth started to turn up into a smirk when she put a hand up.

"No – let me start over. I  _actually_  decided you were wrong. Heinously wrong. I was very angry at you for quite a long time."

"And you're not anymore?"

She pushed a tongue into her cheek. "Well," she said with an apprehensive glance. "I ran into Clara in the lifts one day, and we started talking. I told her about you," she offered. "And then I thought – if someone like  _Clara_  can be a curse-breaker –"

"Clara's alright, you know."

She grimaced. "She's really not."

"You can't still be jealous of her."

"I wasn't jealous!" She shook her head. "I just don't like her. We've talked and – we just don't get on." She paused, anxious again. "She asked after you, you know. How you're doing, and all that. I think she likes you."

He ducked his chin. "You  _are_  jealous."

"I said I'm not, I'm just–"

"Are you going to put your foot on my cock again?" She rolled her eyes, but they were warm.

She looked down at her hands. "I left the Ministry." It was spoken as an everyday statement of fact rather than the earth-shattering revelation it was. It was the last thing he expected from her, and – and she had come,  _here_ , to tell him.

"I'll go back, eventually," she continued. "I've asked Kingsley to let me know when the Junior Undersecretary position is open so I can be considered for it directly. In the meantime, though," she took a deep breath, "I'm doing research for a charity dedicated to magical habitats."

It was so undoubtedly  _her_ , more than bringing him Kingsley's quills to charm, more than accompanying him on artifact pick-ups that were only barely connected to her jurisdiction. It was perfect. It was exactly where he would place her.

"The  _Prophet_  has actually gotten worse, if you can believe it, saying that I've given up on my dreams – like they even know. I've been keeping Harry's solicitor occupied, at least."

His throat felt too thick to speak, and he rubbed at his nose with his hand. There was a sharp pricking behind his eyes, and he almost couldn't believe it. Five months ago, they were miserable, both in jobs they hated for two different yet equally destructive purposes, trying to be together for the wrong reasons. And just look at them now.

"That doesn't bother you?"

She pushed her tongue into her cheek. "It does. Very much, actually." She smirked. "If you wanted to put money on it at any point, now would be the time, the odds being what they are."

"I could use the extra galleons."

She carded a hand through her curls and let her hair fall down her back. "I thought that it wouldn't be a big deal, to take jobs I was overqualified for, because someday I would be happy enough to make up for it. But then I look at – at Harry, for instance, who couldn't be happier, even with the press. And Ron, at the joke shop. You, even, with – well, it must have taken a lot of courage, to leave it all behind. And – it suits you."

_Him._ She had looked for guidance, and she thought of him.

"So I thought there might be a middle ground somewhere." She was still talking, somehow, as if she hadn't just stopped the Earth on its axis.

"Oh." He sounded like an idiot. He wanted to shake himself.

"Mm." She nodded. Her eyes were anxious, and he assumed his were, as well. "Someone told me that I was hiding, you see."

His sharp laugh stuck in his throat, and he brought a hand to his lips. "Sounds like a smart person."

"And, I'm trying this new thing where I don't hide from things that I want."

He paused, his finger tracing his lips, because it seemed like she was talking about –

"Obviously, you're here, so we can't – not that I  _wanted_  to, I just – I mean, I'm not saying I  _don't_  want to, but I'm still, you know, and I'm sure you're still –" she bit her tongue and her hand came to rest on her forehead. "This is coming out wrong."

"Granger–" he reached out to turn her shoulder toward him, but she shifted out of his reach.

"I swear, I didn't come here to ask you to – I wouldn't do that, you've worked so hard to be here, and I would just –"

"Breathe, Hermione."

She gave a shaky laugh. "I wanted to make sure we were okay, is all."

"Of course." They had been okay before he left. When she told him why she was afraid, and he had understood.

"And...oh, god, I feel ridiculous." She looked a little ridiculous, too. Frazzled and off-kilter. "I'd like for us to be friends. You know, start with a clean slate."

"Friends."

She swallowed and nodded. "Just friends." Then, she added, "for now, at least, if you'll have me," and Draco's heart thundered in his ears.

This was  _Hermione_ , and fuck it if this was probably the last thing he should have been considering.  _Hermione_ , who was so afraid to let anyone down that she tortured herself for years. Who used dubious means to find him in France just to tell him he was right (partially). Hermione, who didn't know –

"It complicates things with you being here, but it's easy enough with Floo and Portkeys, and owls, of course. And it's no pressure, either, I'm not going to have any sort of expectations–"

"My contract is only for a year," he blurted out.

She froze. "Oh," she whispered, and coughed. "And are you – you're coming back?"

"I'm not sure."

Her eyes squeezed shut, and her face paled. His heart dropped when she started moving away from him. What had he said?

"I'm sorry, this was–" she pushed her tongue into her cheek, and her eyes were glassy. "I shouldn't have pushed, you're really – well, I'm proud of you. That's all." She began taking measured steps back towards the door. She smiled, and he knew it was fake. She continued brightly, "if you're ever in London–"

"Wait." He caught up to her and touched her hip. Her eyes widened – with hope, fear, he didn't know – but he felt it, as well.

Because this was hard for him, but it was hard for her, too. And she came to  _Paris_  – for  _him._

Because they could do this properly. Not here, not now, but someday, maybe.

"Stay."

 

x.

"Is that it?"

Draco turned his head to look at her, her hair fanned out on the grass, her eyes lit up by the moon. He followed her arm up, pointing into the night sky, and moved his head closer, trying to see what she saw.

"Not quite, it's–" he grabbed her wrist, his thumb and forefinger circling all the way around, and moved it an inch to the left. "There. Do you see?"

Hermione squinted, her arm bending slightly at the elbow, and then she sighed.

"Here–" He pushed his hand under her shoulders, and she lifted her head for him to fit his arm around her neck, pulling her closer to his chest. "Do you see that cluster, there? There's five of them, in sort of a circle."

She followed his finger. "Yes."

"Alright, now," he moved his arm down. "That one? The bright one, right there?"

"Okay."

"Do you see–"

"Yes, I see it."

"That one's called Eltanin. And those, there," he drew a small circle with his finger. "That's the head. From there, it's just – here." He took her wrist again in his hand and directed it, up a bit and then down to the right, and then up again to form the tail. "Like that."

"That's Draco?" She turned over and looked up at him with her chin on his chest.

The stars danced in her eyes. "That's Draco."

**Author's Note:**

> All kudos/reviews are appreciated. Thank you for reading!


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